Crazy Pills, Blowing Up At The Pinewood Derby, and Day 9

Day 9: What defines you? 
Victory of the people who make oaths with God. (points to whoever figures that out).

*Long Intro To Short Story* 
Honestly nothing "defines" me.  If it there is anything that defines me it is my dislike of being defined.  I am not something to be categorized and labeled.  I just am.  Some days I get a little tired of explaining myself.  I understand I do not really click with a lot of people in my ward, or the other ward, but some days I just get tired of not clicking.  Some days I do just want to be defined.

Since I went on the new meds I gained 20 pounds in 4 months.  I lost 20 pounds last year after spending 3 1/2 years putting it on after Livi was born.  20 pounds in 4 months is not fun, especially when the last 6 weeks of it you exercise 5 days a week and are staying religiously on Weight Watchers, but you still gain 2 pounds.  I have never had trouble loosing weight, and it actually took a long time to gain it in the first place, so it has not been easy, emotionally, to not fit into any of my clothes.  I have been wearing sweat pants and t-shirts because I have nothing else to wear.

Feeling so low about my physical self probably hasn't helped my mood, and since the only thing different in the last 4 months was my meds my doctor decided I should stop them so I didn't gain anymore.  That probably didn't help my mood much, and of course, in the middle of everything we had the pinewood derby.

Normally I dont give a fig about what other people think about me.  I wear Ewok and Monty Python T-Shirts under my blazers, put color stripes in my hair, spend hours on ridiculous hobbies, and fight constantly against the over powering "cool" Stott genes to try and make my kids as nerdy (or at least nerd friendly) as possible.  Last year I made a giant high-heel derby car for fun.  It was horribly slow, but if it was real I would wear it in a heart beat, and every kid there had a car they could beat.  It was a win/win/win.  The problem was that there are certain children and adults that feel the need to point out how stupid/ugly/dumb my idea was.

This year I wanted to do another fun car that everyone could beat and I started thinking about what would be *me*,  After a while I came up with the perfect concept, but being a little fragile, everytime I would screw up I would cry and think about all the snide comments I would be getting about my little fun car, no matter how well executed it was.

Over and over I could hear them in my head making fun of me.  It shouldn't matter.  It doesn't matter, but I just couldn't face it one more time, so when the wheels broke as I was putting them on, I did what every mature, rational woman does, and through a tantrum and broke apart the car and threw it in the trash.

I'm not sure when the last time I cried that hard was, but it was one of those ugly, snot cries.  It wasn't just the car, it was me.  I am broken.  I don't know what to do about it anymore, but the car represented how hard I am trying and failing at life.  I just couldn't try anymore.

In the morning Eric was already gone, helping some friend brand and geld their cattle (because that is what friends do here), but when I woke up with a monster cry-induced hangover I found my car on the counter with the wheels fixed.  Eric had stayed up and fixed it for me.  Trying to be brave, I fixed the rest of it and set off to the pinewood derby with the kids.

On the way there I texted this photo to my family with the caption "Who can guess what my pinewood derby car is?"

I got lots of fun guesses like "Log Cabin, "Primitive Tardis," "Abe Lincoln's Camper," and "Pine Wood Derby Car."  When I gave the clues it would have a head, and the real one has wheels too, the ideas got better, including my favorite "Alby the Racist Dragon."  None of them were right.  It was, of course:

The Trojan Rabbit!!!! - from Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.  Duh

My family's response was so funny and wonderful that it gave me the courage to rebuild the car.  "I think my family thinks I'm cool," is my new mantra.  There were rude comments.  Some adults and kids made some very rude comments, but the thing is, when I'm off my meds I call them on it.  I told one adult and at least 4 kids "How do you think your comments make me feel?  Do you think that makes me happy to hear that?"  All the kids apologized.

Back to the important parts:

The kids designed their own cars.  Eric gave them a paper with a block on it and they drew the lines they wanted.  Eric cut them out the best he could, and then we sat down to paint.  Everyone painted their own cars (Livi did have a little help cleaning up a few lines, but that's it). 

The boys were very anxious about how their cars would do.

 I am always amazed at what bad sports the parents are.  You would think more was at stake than a piece of paper. I had three dads come up to check and make sure we were putting their cars on the track right.  One even said we had ruined their car by racing it...ummm... Wasn't the point to race the cars???

Livi did have a car racing, but she and Carter had more fun with the ipad.

Livi ended up getting 3rd place in the open class which includes the top 4 cars from the scout's race. She also received the award for the car "Most Likely To Give You A Hug."

 Ella received the award for "Best Paint Design." (not to be confused with Best Paint Job.  Hers had lots of "design" on it.

 Ethan got 5th out of the 18 scouts, so he didn't qualify for the open class, but he did get the award for "Most Patriotic Paint Job" (it was red, white, and blue). Honestly probably could have gotten zero awards and he would be happy since he was more excited about the root-beer floats.

All our "beautiful" cars lined up.

 

Here is the Trojan Rabbit in action, doing exactly what it was meant to: Looking Cool and Racing Slow!